Taste Test: Brooklyn Brewery Brown Ale

I'm currently reading the book "The Brewmaster's Table" by a guy names Garrett Oliver. He just so happens to be the Brewmaster of the Brookyln Brewery in NY. The book is all about various types of beer, and how to pair beer with food, and one of his big recommendations is his brown ale with roasted lamb or beef. So when I found out we were having roast lamb for dinner, I jumped at the opportunity to try this pairing out myself

Fairly unassuming bottle

 When pouring, it looks almost like filling a glass with coke, with the dark reddy-brow colour and slightly browned head coming together in just the right way to look like a soft drink. Straight out of the fridge, the nose had a strong element of sweet musk sticks to it... Quite odd. After letting it warm up a bit, the aroma mellowed out to a more expected blend of sweet hops and coffee.

You'd think it was Coke if you didn't know better no?

The initial taste is sweet and floral, followed up by a rich body of dark chocolate and espresso coffee notes, accentuating the dark malt backbone of the beer, and tapers off to a bittersweet yet clean finish. The Body is medium to heavy, and the carbonation is very slight on the palate, verging on non-existant.

Went down a treat with dinner

The flavours paired extremely well with the caramelised, meaty flavours of roasted lamb and potatoes, and the beer had enough flavour to not be overpowered by the food. Overall, a fantastic brown ale, I'll give it a 9/10

Cider Brewing Part 2: Failure... And Take 2

So... After a week of 'Fermenting', we took a Gravity reading on the ciders only to discover that they hadn't budged an inch. Meaning no fermentation had actually occurred. We attributed this to the fact that they'd been sitting in a garage in cold weather, and had been at an  average temperature of 14ish degrees. Obviously, this would not work

So began the epic trek for the day, first to Bunnings to buy a 120L plastic tub, then to Country Brewer to buy more yeast, then finally to a pet store to buy a fish tank thermoregulator.

From these bizarre parts, Melo managed to cobble together...

Pretty isn't it?

A ginormous water bath! After giving the original ciders a swirl and letting them spend an hour in the bath at 20ish (Temperature wasn't rising enough, so a whole lot of boiling water was added to... expedite the process), they started bubbling away just like they should have to begin with. So luckily we didn't kill our yeast, we just inactivated it

Next up, Melo made up another 3 Demijohns worth of cider (12L) with a new yeast, Safale S-04, an English Ale yeast as opposed to the American Ale yeast we used previously. They too are now fermenting away like mad

So much cider!

So hopefully soon we'll have 20 litres of cider to test and start doing dumb things to in the hopes of making something great!

Taste Test: Delirium Tremens

Just last week, my girlfriend Jen gave me a (slightly) belated Christmas present of 2 awesome Crystal Beer Glasses, a Beer Tasting Glass and a bottle of Delirium Tremens, a well renowned beer that was labelled as the "Best Beer in the World" at the 1998 World Beer Championships. Seeing this bold claim, I decided I HAD to taste it for myself, to decide whether it lived up to it's reputation.

Cool ceramic bottle, label in 8 million languages

The pour is cloudy and golden, with an abundance of frothy, white head, piled up in the glass like cappucino froth. The intial aromatics are bready yet spicy, with some subtle earthy and funky notes. Upon allowing the beer to warm a bit, a clear aroma of banana came through, along with a slightly 'hot' nose, likely caused by the 8.5% ABV

Awesome beer, and the glass to match!

The first thing you taste is an initial bitter, bready hit, likely a flavour from the yeast, before the sweet, fruit of the body comes through, mainly banana, with a hint of spicy clove. A lingering, bittersweet floral flavour will stay for quite a while, building over a few sips then slowly mellowing out.

A perfect pair

The body is fairly light, and the carbonation of the beer is made interesting by the way the froth mingles with each sip, adding texture and enhancing the bitter notes.

Overall, a great example of a Belgian Strong Ale, though I'm not quite sure it lives up to it's claim as the 'Best Beer in the World'. A solid 8.5/10

You can get Delirium Tremens from lots of bottle shops, but mine was bought along with the glasses from Beer Cartel in Artarmon, Sydney

Quick Update - Stone and Wood Stone Beer

Got back from Breakfast to find a massive parcel on the doorstep. Opened it up and inside were two bottles of beer... One ordinary looking, one rather extraordinary.

Glorious!

 Both are bottles of the Stone and Wood Stone Beer (to be reviewed soon), but the one on the right is the "Special Release" bottle that they put out only a few of each year. It feels like it's made from some sort of ceramic, and looks the part too.

It feels as cool as it looks

It's obviously reusable as evidenced by the swingtop, and came with a tag on the side describing the changes from last year's Stone Beer, as well as part of the brewing process!

All the info one could need, and it's not printed on so you can re-use the bottle!

Can't wait to try this! Will be tasting the Stone Beer, along with all the other Stone and Wood beers soon in a Stone and Wood brewery roundup, where we'll try everything by them except the Garden Ale, which is a Summer seasonal

You can buy Stone and Wood Stone Beer from the Brewery's Website

Taste Test: Green Flash Palate Wrecker

So I was shopping at Beer Cartel a few weeks back, looking for something super-duper hoppy. I'd tried the Mikkeller 1000 IBU, I'd tried the Sierra Nevada Hoptimum, and I wanted something different. After chatting with the staff for a bit, I settled on a beer: Green Flash Brewing Co.'s Palate Wrecker

Standard looking bottle... Hides the intensity of what's inside

The bottle looks fairly unassuming, although it's quite heavy for it's size, but the side of the label is where it gets interesting, with the brewers making the bold claim that the  beer is '149 IBU'. For the uninitiated, the International Bitterness Units scale is a way of measuring just how bitter a beer is. For reference, Toohey's Extra Dry rates about 15 IBU, and VB is around 26. The scale is technically limited to 100, but due to the way taste works, it's a little hard to fully quantify these things... So claims such as the 149 above get to stand, as long as the beer is suitably bitter.

The initial pour is a vibrant, cloudy orange colour with a slightly yellowed, lingering head

Pictured: Me needing a new camera

The aroma is of intense, grassy hops, with a backbone of earthy spice. It's hard to overstate how strong the smell is, it's like sticking your nose into a bowl full of hop pellets. Any malty aromatics are completely overshadowed by the hoppy goodness.

The initial taste is a light, sweet citrus on the tip of the tongue, which develops into a biscuity, crystal malt body, then rapidly hits you with a big wallop of hoppy bitterness, which lingers for a long time. And as much as it's definitely intensely bitter, I feel as though the Mikkeller may have the upper hand in the 'Hoppiest Beer I've Tried' stakes.

See here: My camera did some weird trippy focusing, then made a gif out of it?

The body of the beer is very full, almost syrupy, like a lot of strongly bitter beers tend to be, and carbonation was almost non-existant.

Overall, I'd say this was an enjoyable, super-hoppy ale, with a surprising amount of malt flavour showing despite the lack of anything but hops in the aromatics. Not a beer you'd give to someone who's recently into craft brews, but definitely overall a tasty experience. 7.5/10

Green Flash Palate Wrecker is available from Beer Cartel in Artarmon, Sydney

Homebrewing - When in doubt, Dubbel it - Belgian Dubbel

Today, after a few hours of uni work, got a call from Melo telling me to come over to his to help rack our IPA into the secondary. Upon arriving, I realised he'd lured me there under false presenses... An hour later, our fifth brew was underway. 

First step: weighing out the grains. Melo spent hours designing a grain profile for this beer, so the recipe's staying a little mysterious for now. Just know that we used 3 specialty grains, 2 hops and one BIG pot to boil them all up in

Super secret grain additions

What would brew day be without liquid inspiration?

Next step was putting all the grains in the grain-bag, and steeping at a whole range of different temperatures, each different temperature setting off a whole new set of enzymes to work their magic on our wort

Grains are a go! Not too much in this brew, it's fairly light

World's most ghetto brew stand. It held though!

After nearly 90 minutes of steeping, we started the boil, throwing in a whole load of bittering hops early, then finishing the boil with the tiniest little pinch of aroma hops, for the spicy, fruity, awesomeness known as hop aroma

Mysterious Hops (All 34g of them)

While this whole boiling business was going on, we racked the Trans-Pacific IPA into our new Secondary, which is basically just a giant bucket with some holes drilled in it

Look at that colour!

After the boil, we dunked it in the world's most jury-rigged bucket for a cold crash, cooling it down as fast as possible to stop the aromatic oils from the hops from evaporating

Ice Ice Baby

Finally, the cooled wort went into our freshly cleaned fermenter, taking over the space recently evacuated by our IPA. The Trappist Ale yeast was pitched in and stirred up, then the fermenter was sealed and swaddled up.

On the left, the Dubbel, on the right the IPA. Who's more fashionable?

Now they're both sitting, bubbling away, fermenting into the golden goodness we call beer. IPA should be nearly finished, we'll be dry hopping it on the weekend, and looking to bottle on Tuesday. The Dubbel will probably take 1-3 weeks in the primary, depending on how the weather is, as the room it's in is fairly temperature sensitive.

We have big plans for the Dubbel, specifically additives in the secondaries, so stay tuned to see what we do next!

Taste Test: Young Henry's Real Ale

A beer I first discovered on a drunken night in Newtown, Young Henry's Real Ale is a fantastic example of an English Bitter with an Aussie Twist. Having tried it from a bottle, on tap and from a hand-pumped tap at the brewery, I can say it's great in all three iterations, but today we have a review of the bottled variety

The bottle, in all it's 640 mL glory

As soon as you crack open the bottle, you know you've made a good choice. Right from the get go, you have a cloudy, reddy amber pour, with sparse off-white head, and it 100% looks the part

Pictured: Terrible photo of a glass of beer

The aroma isn't strong, but bready notes are complemented by spicy, earthy hops and hints of toffee sweetness. The initial taste is a sweet, biscuity hit at the tip of the tongue, followed by a slightly orangey, yet still toffeeish and sweet body, and a final bitter hop that lingers for just the right amount of time. It's medium bodied, and has a carbonation that's minimal, but enough to let you know it's not flat.

Pictured: A better photo than either of the ones above

Overall, at 4% alcohol you have a very sessionable ale that has me coming back for more every time. A good example of an English style bitter ale, which is often overshadowed by the American styles of ales in the craft brew world. I'd give it an 8/10, and will definitely be picking some more up soon. Might do a brewery roundup too, seeing as they're fairly close to uni

Young Henry's Real Ale is available from a range of Bottle shops.